House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

Something dark and lethal passed over her father’s face. “How—”

Bryce held up a finger, mocking him. “What happened after I left?”

Her father’s whiskey-colored eyes simmered with flame at the sight of that finger, the command and insistence of the right to speak it conveyed. The sight must have been especially galling from a female.

But he seemed to tamp down his anger and said with a smugness of his own, like he was savoring the bad news as much as she had while giving hers, “The Asteri threw Athalar and your brother into their dungeons, and managed to contain the knowledge of what occurred at their palace. They only informed those of us who needed to know.” He drained his wine. “Did you bring these Fae back into Midgard with you?”

“Did you see them arrive here with me?” No need to tell him that she didn’t part on good terms. Azriel might very well have killed her if she’d stayed a moment longer.

Bryce braced her forearms on the table, gorsian shackles thudding against the cool marble. “So you’ve known Ruhn is in the Asteri’s dungeons for five days and have done nothing to help him?”

“Ruhn deserves all that is coming his way. He chose his fate.”

Her fingers curled into fists, nails digging into her flesh. “He’s your son, for fuck’s sake.”

“I can have others.”

“Not if I kill you first.” A familiar white haze crept over her vision.

Her father smiled, as if noting the primal fury of the Fae—but purely human rage. “You’re so like your mother.” He smirked. “No questions about her fate?”

“I know you wouldn’t be able to keep from telling me if something had happened to her. You’d take too much pleasure in it. Why have the Asteri kept Hunt and Ruhn alive?”

“I believe it is my turn.”

“I believe it’s my turn. No questions about her fate? counts as a question, asshole.”

Her father’s eyes flickered, as if amused despite himself—and impressed. “Very well.”

“Why have they kept Ruhn and Hunt alive?”

“To use them against you, I assume, though I cannot say for sure.” He poured himself more wine, the fading sunlight streaming through the windows making the liquid glow like fresh blood. “Tell me about the knife—it is the one from our prophecies, the sibling to the Starsword?”

“The one and only. They call it Truth-Teller.” He opened his mouth again, but she tapped her fingers on the table. Better get the lay of the land, assess where any allies might be—if they survived. “What’s the status of Ophion?”

“No attacks since the one on the lab. Their numbers are nearly depleted. Ophion is, for all intents and purposes, dead.”

Bryce reined in her wince.

The Autumn King drank from his wine again. At this rate, he’d get through the whole bottle before the sun had fully set. “How did you attain Truth-Teller?”

“I stole it.” She smiled slightly at his frown of distaste. “What of my other friends—are they all alive?”

“If you counted that traitor Cormac amongst your friends, then no. But the rest of them, as far as I have heard, are alive and well.” Bryce reeled. Cormac was— “Did you steal the dagger to fulfill the prophecy?”

She shrugged with what nonchalance she could muster and set down her fork. “I’m tired of this game.”

Cormac was dead. Had he died that day at the lab, or had it been afterward—perhaps in the Asteri’s dungeons, under their questioning? Or had they simply sent the male home to his shitty father and let the King of Avallen rip him to shreds for dishonoring his household?

The Autumn King smiled like he’d won. “Then you are dismissed. I shall see you tomorrow.”

She pushed past her twisting grief to say, “Fuck you.”

He merely inclined his head and resumed eating in silence.



* * *



Ithan strode down the steps of the House of Flame and Shadow in darkness so pure that even his wolf eyes couldn’t pierce it.

He’d never heard anything about what waited at the bottom of the stairs. But he figured he was out of options.

He lost track of how long he walked downward, the air tight and dry. Like a tomb.

The scuff of his sneakers against the steps echoed off the black walls. His eyes strained with the effort of trying to see, to no avail. If the steps ended in a plunge, he’d have no idea. No warning.

It was true, in the end, that he had no warning. But not for a drop. Metal clanked, and his skull with it, as Ithan slammed into a wall. He rebounded, swearing—

Light, golden and soft, cracked through the stairwell.

It wasn’t a wall. It was a door, and beyond it, silhouetted by the light, was a slim female figure. Even before he could make out her face, he knew the voice. Arch, cultured, bored.

“Well, that’s one way of knocking,” drawled Jesiba Roga.





31


Jesiba Roga led Ithan through a subterranean hall of black stone, lit only by crackling fires in hearths shaped like roaring, fanged mouths. In front of those fireplaces lounged draki of varying hues, vampyrs drinking goblets of blood, and daemonaki in business suits typing away on laptops.

A weirdly … normal place. Like a private club.